News tagged with geophysicists
When continents collide: A new twist to a 50 million-year-old tale
Fifty million years ago, India slammed into Eurasia, a collision that gave rise to the tallest landforms on the planet, the Himalaya Mountains and the Tibetan Plateau.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 29, 2012 |
4.5 / 5 (12) |
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Earthquakes generate big heat in super-small areas: study
Most earthquakes that are seen, heard, and felt around the world are caused by fast slip on faults. While the earthquake rupture itself can travel on a fault as fast as the speed of sound or better, the fault ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 13, 2011 |
4.5 / 5 (4) |
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Geophysicists claim conventional understanding of Earth's deep water cycle needs revision
A popular view among geophysicists is that large amounts of water are carried from the oceans to the deep mantle in "subduction zones," which are boundaries where the Earth's crustal plates converge, with ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Oct 18, 2010 |
4.9 / 5 (17) |
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Geophysicists employ novel method to identify sources of global sea level rise
As the Earth's climate warms, a melting ice sheet produces a distinct and highly non-uniform pattern of sea-level change, with sea level falling close to the melting ice sheet and rising progressively farther away. The pattern ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Apr 24, 2012 |
4.1 / 5 (8) |
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Santorini: The ground is moving again in paradise
Do a Google image search for "Greece." Before you find pictures of the Parthenon or Acropolis, you'll see several beautiful photos of Santorini, the picturesque island in the Aegean Sea. The British Broadcasting ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Mar 13, 2012 |
3.8 / 5 (8) |
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Mathematical methods help predict movement of oil and ash following environmental disasters
When oil started gushing into the Gulf of Mexico in late April 2010, friends asked George Haller whether he was tracking its movement. That's because the McGill engineering professor has been working for years ...
Mar 12, 2012 |
4 / 5 (1) |
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Encounters of another kind: meteorite chunk falls on Oslo
A Norwegian family was flabbergasted to find that what appeared to be a piece of a meteorite had crashed through the roof of their allotment garden hut in the middle of Oslo, media reported Monday.
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Mar 12, 2012 |
4.6 / 5 (5) |
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Satellite imagery detects thermal 'uplift' signal of underground nuclear tests
A new analysis of satellite data from the late 1990s documents for the first time the "uplift" of ground above a site of underground nuclear testing, providing researchers a potential new tool for analyzing the strength of ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 10, 2012 |
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Earthquakes: Water as a lubricant
Geophysicists from Potsdam (Germany) have established a mode of action that can explain the irregular distribution of strong earthquakes at the San Andreas Fault in California. As the science magazine Nature reports in its ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Nov 30, 2011 |
4.8 / 5 (4) |
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Electric Yellowstone: Conductivity image hints volcano plume is bigger than thought
University of Utah geophysicists made the first large-scale picture of the electrical conductivity of the gigantic underground plume of hot and partly molten rock that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano. The ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Apr 11, 2011 |
4.7 / 5 (15) |
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New Technology Allows Geophysicist To Test Theory About Formation of Hawaii (w/ Podcast)
(PhysOrg.com) -- If you've ever been to Hawaii, you probably spent your time enjoying the scenery of the beautiful islands, rather than wondering how they got to be there in the first place. But that's just what scientists ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 11, 2009 |
4.3 / 5 (4) |
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The least sea ice in 800 years
New research, which reconstructs the extent of ice in the sea between Greenland and Svalbard from the 13th century to the present indicates that there has never been so little sea ice as there is now. The ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 01, 2009 |
4.1 / 5 (66) |
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Tohoku grim reminder of potential for Pacific Northwest megaquake
Tohoku earthquake is a grim reminder of the potential for another strong-motion mega-earthquake along the Pacific Northwest coast, geophysicist John Anderson of the University of Nevada, Reno told members of the American ...
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Feb 21, 2012 |
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More environmental rules needed for shale gas, says Stanford geophysicist
In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama praised the potential of the country's tremendous supply of natural gas buried in shale. He echoed the recommendations for safe extraction made by ...
Feb 06, 2012 |
5 / 5 (2) |
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Stanford scientists' computer models help predict tsunami risk
(PhysOrg.com) -- Stanford scientists are using complex computational models to solve the puzzle of the devastating tsunami that struck Japan earlier this year and predict where future tsunamis might occur.
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Dec 14, 2011 |
5 / 5 (1) |
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Geophysics
Geophysics ( /dʒiːoʊfɪzɪks/) is the physics of the Earth and its environment in space; also the study of the Earth using quantitative physical methods. The term geophysics sometimes refers only to the geological applications: Earth's shape; its gravitational and magnetic fields; its internal structure and composition; its dynamics and their surface expression in plate tectonics, the generation of magmas, volcanism and rock formation. However, modern geophysics organizations use a broader definition that includes the hydrological cycle including snow and ice; fluid dynamics of the oceans and the atmosphere; electricity and magnetism in the ionosphere and magnetosphere and solar-terrestrial relations; and analogous problems associated with the Moon and other planets.
Although geophysics was only recognized as a separate discipline in the 19th century, its origins go back to ancient history. The first magnetic compasses date back to the fourth century BC and the first seismoscope was built in 132 BC. Geophysical methods were developed for navigation; Isaac Newton applied his theory of mechanics to the tides and the precession of the equinox; and instruments were developed to measure the Earth's shape, density and gravity field, as well as the components of the water cycle. In the 20th century, geophysical methods were developed for remote exploration of the solid Earth and the ocean, and geophysics played an essential role in the development of the theory of plate tectonics.
Geophysics is applied to societal needs, such as mineral resources, mitigation of natural hazards and environmental protection. Geophysical survey data are used to analyze potential petroleum reservoirs and mineral deposits, locate groundwater, find archaeological relics, determine the thickness of glaciers and soils, and assess sites for environmental remediation.
For more information about Geophysics, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
